The conversion of mixtures of carbon monoxide and hydrogen to alcohols has been previously described and a variety of metal catalysts have been proposed for this purpose.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,061,470 describes the production of methanol using as catalyst the reaction product of a fused mixture of copper oxide and manganese oxide or copper oxide and zinc oxide and an oxide selected from the group consisting of chromium, vanadium, zirconium, aluminum, magnesium, titanium, thorium, silicon and cerium.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,298,354 describes an oxide complex catalyst containing copper and thorium and having the formula Cu.sub.a ThM.sub.b A.sub.c O.sub.x wherein M is one or more of Ca, Mo, Rh, Mn, Pt, Ce, Cr, Zn, Al, Ti, La, V, U, Ru, Re and Pd, A is an alkali metal and wherein a is 0.5 to 2.5; b is 0.01 to 1.0; c is 0.05 to 0.9 and x is a number such that the valence requirements of the other elements for oxygen is satisfied.
Catalysts containing copper and uranium have been described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,375,425 as being effective for the water gas shift reaction i.e. CO+H.sub.2 O=CO.sub.2 +H.sub.2. The catalysts described are said to consist essentially of an alkali metal promoted partially reduced mixture of at least one copper uranate of formula CuUO.sub.4 or CuU.sub.3 O.sub.10 and at least one oxide of copper of formula CuO or Cu.sub.2 O. The amount of alkali metal disclosed is from 0.01 to 2 weight percent of the catalyst.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,237,063 describes catalysts for making alcohols from carbon monoxide and hydrogen containing alumina and a metal cyanocuprate of formula A.sub.x B.sub.y [Cu(CN).sub.4 ] where A and B can be selected from a list of metals which includes uranium and alkali and alkaline earth metals. There is no disclosure of the specific combination of copper, uranium and alkali metal and none of the catalysts described contain chemically bound oxygen.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,312,955 describes catalysts for the conversion of carbon monoxide and hydrogen to methanol which contain lanthanum rhodate which can be substituted with metal cations such as uranium and copper. However, there is no disclosure of the presence of alkali metal or alkaline earth metal.